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Split off language-specific docs to their own chapters.

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Add PL/perl docs from Mark Hollomon.
Put language-specific docs into the User's Guide, and move the rest
 to the Programmer's Guide.
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Thomas G. Lockhart 2000-03-30 22:13:30 +00:00
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<chapter id="pl-perl">
<title>Perl Procedural Language</title>
<para>
This chapter describes how to compile, install and
use PL/Perl.
</para>
<sect1>
<title>Overview</title>
<para>
PL/Perl allows you to write functions in the Perl scripting
language which may be used in SQL queries as if they were
built into <productname>Postgres</productname>.
</para>
<para>
The PL/Perl intepreter is a full Perl interpreter. However,
certain operations have been disabled in order to increase
the security level of the system.
</para>
<para>
In general, the operations that are restricted are those that
interact with the environment. This includes filehandle operations,
<literal>require</literal>, and <literal>use</literal> (for external
modules).
</para>
<para>
It should be noted that this security is not absolute. Indeed, several
Denial-of-Service attacks are still possible - memory exhaustion and
endless loops are two.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Building and Installing</title>
<para>
Assuming that the <productname>Postgres</productname>
source tree is rooted at $PGSRC, then the Pl/perl source
code is located in $PGSRC/src/pl/plperl.
</para>
<para>
To build, simply do the following:
<programlisting>
cd $PGSRC/src/pl/plperl
perl Makefile.PL
make
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>
This will create a shared library file. On a Linux system, it will be
named plperl.so. The extension may differ on other systems.
</para>
<para>
The shared library should then be copied into the lib subdirectory of the
postgres installation.
</para>
<para>
The createlang command is used to install the language into a database.
If it is installed into template1, all future databases will have the
language installed automatically.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Using PL/Perl</title>
<para>
Assume you have the following table:
<programlisting>
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE (
name text,
basesalary int4,
bonus int4 );
</programlisting>
In order to get the total compensation (base + bonus) we could
define a function as follows:
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION totalcomp(int4, int4) RETURNS int4
AS 'return $_[0] + $_[1]'
LANGUAGE 'plperl';
</programlisting>
Note that the arguments are passed to the function in
<literal>@_</literal> as might be expected. Also, because
of the quoting rules for the SQL creating the function, you
may find yourself using the extended quoting functions (qq[],
q[], qw[]) more often that you are used to.
</para>
<para>
We may now use our function like so:
<programlisting>
SELECT name, totalcomp(basesalary, bonus) from employee
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>
But, we can also pass entire tuples to our function:
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION empcomp(employee) returns int4
AS 'my $emp = shift;
return $emp->{'basesalary'} + $emp->{'bonus'};'
LANGUAGE 'plperl';
</programlisting>
A tuple is passed as a reference to hash. The keys are the names of
fields in the tuples. The values are values of the corresponding
field in the tuple.
</para>
<para>
The new function <literal>empcomp</literal> can used like:
<programlisting>
SELECT name, empcomp(employee) from employee;
</programlisting>
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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<chapter>
<title>PL/pgSQL</title>
<para>
PL/pgSQL is a loadable procedural language for the
<productname>Postgres</productname> database system.
</para>
<para>
This package was originally written by Jan Wieck.
</para>
<sect1>
<title>Overview</title>
<para>
The design goals of PL/pgSQL were to create a loadable procedural
language that
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
can be used to create functions and trigger procedures,
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
adds control structures to the <acronym>SQL</acronym> language,
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
can perform complex computations,
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
inherits all user defined types, functions and operators,
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
can be defined to be trusted by the server,
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
is easy to use.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
The PL/pgSQL call handler parses the functions source text and
produces an internal binary instruction tree on the first time, the
function is called by a backend. The produced bytecode is identified
in the call handler by the object ID of the function. This ensures,
that changing a function by a DROP/CREATE sequence will take effect
without establishing a new database connection.
</para>
<para>
For all expressions and <acronym>SQL</acronym> statements used in
the function, the PL/pgSQL bytecode interpreter creates a
prepared execution plan using the SPI managers SPI_prepare() and
SPI_saveplan() functions. This is done the first time, the individual
statement is processed in the PL/pgSQL function. Thus, a function with
conditional code that contains many statements for which execution
plans would be required, will only prepare and save those plans
that are really used during the entire lifetime of the database
connection.
</para>
<para>
Except for input-/output-conversion and calculation functions
for user defined types, anything that can be defined in C language
functions can also be done with PL/pgSQL. It is possible to
create complex conditional computation functions and later use
them to define operators or use them in functional indices.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL Description **** -->
<sect1>
<title>Description</title>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL structure **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Structure of PL/pgSQL</title>
<para>
The PL/pgSQL language is case insensitive. All keywords and
identifiers can be used in mixed upper- and lowercase.
</para>
<para>
PL/pgSQL is a block oriented language. A block is defined as
<programlisting>
[&lt;&lt;label&gt;&gt;]
[DECLARE
<replaceable>declarations</replaceable>]
BEGIN
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>
END;
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>
There can be any number of subblocks in the statement section
of a block. Subblocks can be used to hide variables from outside a
block of statements. The variables
declared in the declarations section preceding a block are
initialized to their default values every time the block is entered,
not only once per function call.
</para>
<para>
It is important not to misunderstand the meaning of BEGIN/END for
grouping statements in PL/pgSQL and the database commands for
transaction control. Functions and trigger procedures cannot
start or commit transactions and <productname>Postgres</productname>
does not have nested transactions.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Comments</title>
<para>
There are two types of comments in PL/pgSQL. A double dash '--'
starts a comment that extends to the end of the line. A '/*'
starts a block comment that extends to the next occurence of '*/'.
Block comments cannot be nested, but double dash comments can be
enclosed into a block comment and a double dash can hide
the block comment delimiters '/*' and '*/'.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL declarations **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Declarations</title>
<para>
All variables, rows and records used in a block or it's
subblocks must be declared in the declarations section of a block
except for the loop variable of a FOR loop iterating over a range
of integer values. Parameters given to a PL/pgSQL function are
automatically declared with the usual identifiers $n.
The declarations have the following syntax:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<replaceable>name</replaceable> [ CONSTANT ]
<replaceable>>typ</replaceable>> [ NOT NULL ] [ DEFAULT | :=
<replaceable>value</replaceable> ];
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Declares a variable of the specified base type. If the variable
is declared as CONSTANT, the value cannot be changed. If NOT NULL
is specified, an assignment of a NULL value results in a runtime
error. Since the default value of all variables is the
<acronym>SQL</acronym> NULL value, all variables declared as NOT NULL
must also have a default value specified.
</para>
<para>
The default value is evaluated ever time the function is called. So
assigning '<replaceable>now</replaceable>' to a variable of type
<replaceable>datetime</replaceable> causes the variable to have the
time of the actual function call, not when the function was
precompiled into it's bytecode.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<replaceable>name</replaceable> <replaceable>class</replaceable>%ROWTYPE;
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Declares a row with the structure of the given class. Class must be
an existing table- or viewname of the database. The fields of the row
are accessed in the dot notation. Parameters to a function can
be composite types (complete table rows). In that case, the
corresponding identifier $n will be a rowtype, but it
must be aliased using the ALIAS command described below. Only the user
attributes of a table row are accessible in the row, no Oid or other
system attributes (hence the row could be from a view and view rows
don't have useful system attributes).
</para>
<para>
The fields of the rowtype inherit the tables fieldsizes
or precision for char() etc. data types.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<replaceable>name</replaceable> RECORD;
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Records are similar to rowtypes, but they have no predefined structure.
They are used in selections and FOR loops to hold one actual
database row from a SELECT operation. One and the same record can be
used in different selections. Accessing a record or an attempt to assign
a value to a record field when there is no actual row in it results
in a runtime error.
</para>
<para>
The NEW and OLD rows in a trigger are given to the procedure as
records. This is necessary because in <productname>Postgres</productname>
one and the same trigger procedure can handle trigger events for
different tables.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<replaceable>name</replaceable> ALIAS FOR $n;
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
For better readability of the code it is possible to define an alias
for a positional parameter to a function.
</para>
<para>
This aliasing is required for composite types given as arguments to
a function. The dot notation $1.salary as in SQL functions is not
allowed in PL/pgSQL.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
RENAME <replaceable>oldname</replaceable> TO <replaceable>newname</replaceable>;
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Change the name of a variable, record or row. This is useful
if NEW or OLD should be referenced by another name inside a
trigger procedure.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL data types **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Data Types</title>
<para>
The type of a varible can be any of the existing basetypes of
the database. <replaceable>type</replaceable> in the declarations
section above is defined as:
</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
<productname>Postgres</productname>-basetype
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<replaceable>variable</replaceable>%TYPE
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<replaceable>class.field</replaceable>%TYPE
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
<replaceable>variable</replaceable> is the name of a variable,
previously declared in the
same function, that is visible at this point.
</para>
<para>
<replaceable>class</replaceable> is the name of an existing table
or view where <replaceable>field</replaceable> is the name of
an attribute.
</para>
<para>
Using the <replaceable>class.field</replaceable>%TYPE
causes PL/pgSQL to lookup the attributes definitions at the
first call to the funciton during the lifetime of a backend.
Have a table with a char(20) attribute and some PL/pgSQL functions
that deal with it's content in local variables. Now someone
decides that char(20) isn't enough, dumps the table, drops it,
recreates it now with the attribute in question defined as
char(40) and restores the data. Ha - he forgot about the
funcitons. The computations inside them will truncate the values
to 20 characters. But if they are defined using the
<replaceable>class.field</replaceable>%TYPE
declarations, they will automagically handle the size change or
if the new table schema defines the attribute as text type.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL expressions **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Expressions</title>
<para>
All expressions used in PL/pgSQL statements are processed using
the backends executor. Expressions which appear to contain
constants may in fact require run-time evaluation (e.g. 'now' for the
datetime type) so
it is impossible for the PL/pgSQL parser
to identify real constant values other than the NULL keyword. All
expressions are evaluated internally by executing a query
<programlisting>
SELECT <replaceable>expression</replaceable>
</programlisting>
using the SPI manager. In the expression, occurences of variable
identifiers are substituted by parameters and the actual values from
the variables are passed to the executor in the parameter array. All
expressions used in a PL/pgSQL function are only prepared and
saved once.
</para>
<para>
The type checking done by the <productname>Postgres</productname>
main parser has some side
effects to the interpretation of constant values. In detail there
is a difference between what the two functions
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION logfunc1 (text) RETURNS datetime AS '
DECLARE
logtxt ALIAS FOR $1;
BEGIN
INSERT INTO logtable VALUES (logtxt, ''now'');
RETURN ''now'';
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
</programlisting>
and
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION logfunc2 (text) RETURNS datetime AS '
DECLARE
logtxt ALIAS FOR $1;
curtime datetime;
BEGIN
curtime := ''now'';
INSERT INTO logtable VALUES (logtxt, curtime);
RETURN curtime;
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
</programlisting>
do. In the case of logfunc1(), the <productname>Postgres</productname>
main parser
knows when preparing the plan for the INSERT, that the string 'now'
should be interpreted as datetime because the target field of logtable
is of that type. Thus, it will make a constant from it at this time
and this constant value is then used in all invocations of logfunc1()
during the lifetime of the backend. Needless to say that this isn't what the
programmer wanted.
</para>
<para>
In the case of logfunc2(), the <productname>Postgres</productname>
main parser does not know
what type 'now' should become and therefor it returns a datatype of
text containing the string 'now'. During the assignment
to the local variable curtime, the PL/pgSQL interpreter casts this
string to the datetime type by calling the text_out() and datetime_in()
functions for the conversion.
</para>
<para>
This type checking done by the <productname>Postgres</productname> main
parser got implemented after PL/pgSQL was nearly done.
It is a difference between 6.3 and 6.4 and affects all functions
using the prepared plan feature of the SPI manager.
Using a local
variable in the above manner is currently the only way in PL/pgSQL to get
those values interpreted correctly.
</para>
<para>
If record fields are used in expressions or statements, the data types of
fields should not change between calls of one and the same expression.
Keep this in mind when writing trigger procedures that handle events
for more than one table.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL statements **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Statements</title>
<para>
Anything not understood by the PL/pgSQL parser as specified below
will be put into a query and sent down to the database engine
to execute. The resulting query should not return any data.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Assignment</term>
<listitem>
<para>
An assignment of a value to a variable or row/record field is
written as
<programlisting>
<replaceable>identifier</replaceable> := <replaceable>expression</replaceable>;
</programlisting>
If the expressions result data type doesn't match the variables
data type, or the variable has a size/precision that is known
(as for char(20)), the result value will be implicitly casted by
the PL/pgSQL bytecode interpreter using the result types output- and
the variables type input-functions. Note that this could potentially
result in runtime errors generated by the types input functions.
</para>
<para>
An assignment of a complete selection into a record or row can
be done by
<programlisting>
SELECT <replaceable>expressions</replaceable> INTO <replaceable>target</replaceable> FROM ...;
</programlisting>
<replaceable>target</replaceable> can be a record, a row variable or a
comma separated list of variables and record-/row-fields.
</para>
<para>
if a row or a variable list is used as target, the selected values
must exactly match the structure of the target(s) or a runtime error
occurs. The FROM keyword can be followed by any valid qualification,
grouping, sorting etc. that can be given for a SELECT statement.
</para>
<para>
There is a special variable named FOUND of type bool that can be used
immediately after a SELECT INTO to check if an assignment had success.
<programlisting>
SELECT * INTO myrec FROM EMP WHERE empname = myname;
IF NOT FOUND THEN
RAISE EXCEPTION ''employee % not found'', myname;
END IF;
</programlisting>
If the selection returns multiple rows, only the first is moved
into the target fields. All others are silently discarded.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Calling another function</term>
<listitem>
<para>
All functions defined in a <productname>Prostgres</productname>
database return a value. Thus, the normal way to call a function
is to execute a SELECT query or doing an assignment (resulting
in a PL/pgSQL internal SELECT). But there are cases where someone
isn't interested int the functions result.
<programlisting>
PERFORM <replaceable>query</replaceable>
</programlisting>
executes a 'SELECT <replaceable>query</replaceable>' over the
SPI manager and discards the result. Identifiers like local
variables are still substituted into parameters.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Returning from the function</term>
<listitem>
<para>
<programlisting>
RETURN <replaceable>expression</replaceable>
</programlisting>
The function terminates and the value of <replaceable>expression</replaceable>
will be returned to the upper executor. The return value of a function
cannot be undefined. If control reaches the end of the toplevel block
of the function without hitting a RETURN statement, a runtime error
will occur.
</para>
<para>
The expressions result will be automatically casted into the
functions return type as described for assignments.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Aborting and messages</term>
<listitem>
<para>
As indicated in the above examples there is a RAISE statement that
can throw messages into the <productname>Postgres</productname>
elog mechanism.
<programlisting>
RAISE <replaceable class="parameter">level</replaceable> <replaceable class="parameter">format</replaceable>'' [, <replaceable class="parameter">identifier</replaceable> [...]];
</programlisting>
Inside the format, <quote>%</quote> is used as a placeholder for the
subsequent comma-separated identifiers. Possible levels are
DEBUG (silently suppressed in production running databases), NOTICE
(written into the database log and forwarded to the client application)
and EXCEPTION (written into the database log and aborting the transaction).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Conditionals</term>
<listitem>
<para>
<programlisting>
IF <replaceable>expression</replaceable> THEN
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>
[ELSE
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>]
END IF;
</programlisting>
The <replaceable>expression</replaceable> must return a value that
at least can be casted into a boolean type.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
Loops
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
There are multiple types of loops.
<programlisting>
[&lt;&lt;label&gt;&gt;]
LOOP
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>
END LOOP;
</programlisting>
An unconditional loop that must be terminated explicitly
by an EXIT statement. The optional label can be used by
EXIT statements of nested loops to specify which level of
nesting should be terminated.
<programlisting>
[&lt;&lt;label&gt;&gt;]
WHILE <replaceable>expression</replaceable> LOOP
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>
END LOOP;
</programlisting>
A conditional loop that is executed as long as the evaluation
of <replaceable>expression</replaceable> is true.
<programlisting>
[&lt;&lt;label&gt;&gt;]
FOR <replaceable>name</replaceable> IN [ REVERSE ] <replaceable>expression</replaceable> .. <replaceable>expression</replaceable> LOOP
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>
END LOOP;
</programlisting>
A loop that iterates over a range of integer values. The variable
<replaceable>name</replaceable> is automatically created as type
integer and exists only inside the loop. The two expressions giving
the lower and upper bound of the range are evaluated only when entering
the loop. The iteration step is always 1.
<programlisting>
[&lt;&lt;label&gt;&gt;]
FOR <replaceable>record | row</replaceable> IN <replaceable>select_clause</replaceable> LOOP
<replaceable>statements</replaceable>
END LOOP;
</programlisting>
The record or row is assigned all the rows resulting from the select
clause and the statements executed for each. If the loop is terminated
with an EXIT statement, the last assigned row is still accessible
after the loop.
<programlisting>
EXIT [ <replaceable>label</replaceable> ] [ WHEN <replaceable>expression</replaceable> ];
</programlisting>
If no <replaceable>label</replaceable> given,
the innermost loop is terminated and the
statement following END LOOP is executed next.
If <replaceable>label</replaceable> is given, it
must be the label of the current or an upper level of nested loop
blocks. Then the named loop or block is terminated and control
continues with the statement after the loops/blocks corresponding
END.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL trigger procedures **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Trigger Procedures</title>
<para>
PL/pgSQL can be used to define trigger procedures. They are created
with the usual CREATE FUNCTION command as a function with no
arguments and a return type of OPAQUE.
</para>
<para>
There are some <productname>Postgres</productname> specific details
in functions used as trigger procedures.
</para>
<para>
First they have some special variables created automatically in the
toplevel blocks declaration section. They are
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>NEW</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype RECORD; variable holding the new database row on INSERT/UPDATE
operations on ROW level triggers.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>OLD</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype RECORD; variable holding the old database row on UPDATE/DELETE
operations on ROW level triggers.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_NAME</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype name; variable that contains the name of the trigger actually
fired.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_WHEN</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype text; a string of either 'BEFORE' or 'AFTER' depending on the
triggers definition.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_LEVEL</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype text; a string of either 'ROW' or 'STATEMENT' depending on the
triggers definition.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_OP</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype text; a string of 'INSERT', 'UPDATE' or 'DELETE' telling
for which operation the trigger is actually fired.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_RELID</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype oid; the object ID of the table that caused the
trigger invocation.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_RELNAME</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype name; the name of the table that caused the trigger
invocation.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_NARGS</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype integer; the number of arguments given to the trigger
procedure in the CREATE TRIGGER statement.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TG_ARGV[]</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Datatype array of text; the arguments from the CREATE TRIGGER statement.
The index counts from 0 and can be given as an expression. Invalid
indices (&lt; 0 or &gt;= tg_nargs) result in a NULL value.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
Second they must return either NULL or a record/row containing
exactly the structure of the table the trigger was fired for.
Triggers fired AFTER might always return a NULL value with no
effect. Triggers fired BEFORE signal the trigger manager
to skip the operation for this actual row when returning NULL.
Otherwise, the returned record/row replaces the inserted/updated
row in the operation. It is possible to replace single values directly
in NEW and return that or to build a complete new record/row to
return.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL exceptions **** -->
<sect2>
<title>Exceptions</title>
<para>
<productname>Postgres</productname> does not have a very smart
exception handling model. Whenever the parser, planner/optimizer
or executor decide that a statement cannot be processed any longer,
the whole transaction gets aborted and the system jumps back
into the mainloop to get the next query from the client application.
</para>
<para>
It is possible to hook into the error mechanism to notice that this
happens. But currently it's impossible to tell what really
caused the abort (input/output conversion error, floating point
error, parse error). And it is possible that the database backend
is in an inconsistent state at this point so returning to the upper
executor or issuing more commands might corrupt the whole database.
And even if, at this point the information, that the transaction
is aborted, is already sent to the client application, so resuming
operation does not make any sense.
</para>
<para>
Thus, the only thing PL/pgSQL currently does when it encounters
an abort during execution of a function or trigger
procedure is to write some additional DEBUG level log messages
telling in which function and where (line number and type of
statement) this happened.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- **** PL/pgSQL Examples **** -->
<sect1>
<title>Examples</title>
<para>
Here are only a few functions to demonstrate how easy PL/pgSQL
functions can be written. For more complex examples the programmer
might look at the regression test for PL/pgSQL.
</para>
<para>
One painful detail of writing functions in PL/pgSQL is the handling
of single quotes. The functions source text on CREATE FUNCTION must
be a literal string. Single quotes inside of literal strings must be
either doubled or quoted with a backslash. We are still looking for
an elegant alternative. In the meantime, doubling the single qoutes
as in the examples below should be used. Any solution for this
in future versions of <productname>Postgres</productname> will be
upward compatible.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>Some Simple PL/pgSQL Functions</title>
<para>
The following two PL/pgSQL functions are identical to their
counterparts from the C language function discussion.
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION add_one (int4) RETURNS int4 AS '
BEGIN
RETURN $1 + 1;
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
</programlisting>
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION concat_text (text, text) RETURNS text AS '
BEGIN
RETURN $1 || $2;
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
</programlisting>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>PL/pgSQL Function on Composite Type</title>
<para>
Again it is the PL/pgSQL equivalent to the example from
The C functions.
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION c_overpaid (EMP, int4) RETURNS bool AS '
DECLARE
emprec ALIAS FOR $1;
sallim ALIAS FOR $2;
BEGIN
IF emprec.salary ISNULL THEN
RETURN ''f'';
END IF;
RETURN emprec.salary > sallim;
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
</programlisting>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>PL/pgSQL Trigger Procedure</title>
<para>
This trigger ensures, that any time a row is inserted or updated
in the table, the current username and time are stamped into the
row. And it ensures that an employees name is given and that the
salary is a positive value.
<programlisting>
CREATE TABLE emp (
empname text,
salary int4,
last_date datetime,
last_user name);
CREATE FUNCTION emp_stamp () RETURNS OPAQUE AS
BEGIN
-- Check that empname and salary are given
IF NEW.empname ISNULL THEN
RAISE EXCEPTION ''empname cannot be NULL value'';
END IF;
IF NEW.salary ISNULL THEN
RAISE EXCEPTION ''% cannot have NULL salary'', NEW.empname;
END IF;
-- Who works for us when she must pay for?
IF NEW.salary < 0 THEN
RAISE EXCEPTION ''% cannot have a negative salary'', NEW.empname;
END IF;
-- Remember who changed the payroll when
NEW.last_date := ''now'';
NEW.last_user := getpgusername();
RETURN NEW;
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
CREATE TRIGGER emp_stamp BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON emp
FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE emp_stamp();
</programlisting>
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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<chapter>
<title>PL/Tcl</title>
<para>
PL/Tcl is a loadable procedural language for the
<productname>Postgres</productname> database system
that enables the Tcl language to be used to create functions and
trigger-procedures.
</para>
<para>
This package was originally written by Jan Wieck.
</para>
<!-- **** PL/Tcl overview **** -->
<sect1>
<title>Overview</title>
<para>
PL/Tcl offers most of the capabilities a function
writer has in the C language, except for some restrictions.
</para>
<para>
The good restriction is, that everything is executed in a safe
Tcl-interpreter. In addition to the limited command set of safe Tcl, only
a few commands are available to access the database over SPI and to raise
messages via elog(). There is no way to access internals of the
database backend or gaining OS-level access under the permissions of the
<productname>Postgres</productname> user ID like in C.
Thus, any unprivileged database user may be
permitted to use this language.
</para>
<para>
The other, internal given, restriction is, that Tcl procedures cannot
be used to create input-/output-functions for new data types.
</para>
<para>
The shared object for the PL/Tcl call handler is automatically built
and installed in the <productname>Postgres</productname>
library directory if the Tcl/Tk support is specified
in the configuration step of the installation procedure.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- **** PL/Tcl description **** -->
<sect1>
<title>Description</title>
<sect2>
<title><productname>Postgres</productname> Functions and Tcl Procedure Names</title>
<para>
In <productname>Postgres</productname>, one and the
same function name can be used for
different functions as long as the number of arguments or their types
differ. This would collide with Tcl procedure names. To offer the same
flexibility in PL/Tcl, the internal Tcl procedure names contain the object
ID of the procedures pg_proc row as part of their name. Thus, different
argtype versions of the same <productname>Postgres</productname>
function are different for Tcl too.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Defining Functions in PL/Tcl</title>
<para>
To create a function in the PL/Tcl language, use the known syntax
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION <replaceable>funcname</replaceable> <replaceable>argument-types</replaceable>) RETURNS <replaceable>return-type</replaceable> AS '
# PL/Tcl function body
' LANGUAGE 'pltcl';
</programlisting>
When calling this function in a query, the arguments are given as
variables $1 ... $n to the Tcl procedure body. So a little max function
returning the higher of two int4 values would be created as:
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION tcl_max (int4, int4) RETURNS int4 AS '
if {$1 > $2} {return $1}
return $2
' LANGUAGE 'pltcl';
</programlisting>
Composite type arguments are given to the procedure as Tcl arrays.
The element names
in the array are the attribute names of the composite
type. If an attribute in the actual row
has the NULL value, it will not appear in the array! Here is
an example that defines the overpaid_2 function (as found in the
older <productname>Postgres</productname> documentation) in PL/Tcl
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION overpaid_2 (EMP) RETURNS bool AS '
if {200000.0 < $1(salary)} {
return "t"
}
if {$1(age) < 30 && 100000.0 < $1(salary)} {
return "t"
}
return "f"
' LANGUAGE 'pltcl';
</programlisting>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Global Data in PL/Tcl</title>
<para>
Sometimes (especially when using the SPI functions described later) it
is useful to have some global status data that is held between two
calls to a procedure.
All PL/Tcl procedures executed in one backend share the same
safe Tcl interpreter.
To help protecting PL/Tcl procedures from side effects,
an array is made available to each procedure via the upvar
command. The global name of this variable is the procedures internal
name and the local name is GD.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Trigger Procedures in PL/Tcl</title>
<para>
Trigger procedures are defined in <productname>Postgres</productname>
as functions without
arguments and a return type of opaque. And so are they in the PL/Tcl
language.
</para>
<para>
The informations from the trigger manager are given to the procedure body
in the following variables:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$TG_name</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
The name of the trigger from the CREATE TRIGGER statement.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$TG_relid</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
The object ID of the table that caused the trigger procedure
to be invoked.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$TG_relatts</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
A Tcl list of the tables field names prefixed with an empty list element.
So looking up an element name in the list with the lsearch Tcl command
returns the same positive number starting from 1 as the fields are numbered
in the pg_attribute system catalog.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$TG_when</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
The string BEFORE or AFTER depending on the event of the trigger call.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$TG_level</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
The string ROW or STATEMENT depending on the event of the trigger call.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$TG_op</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
The string INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE depending on the event of the
trigger call.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$NEW</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
An array containing the values of the new table row on INSERT/UPDATE
actions, or empty on DELETE.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$OLD</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
An array containing the values of the old table row on UPDATE/DELETE
actions, or empty on INSERT.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$GD</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
The global status data array as described above.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable class="Parameter">$args</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
A Tcl list of the arguments to the procedure as given in the
CREATE TRIGGER statement. The arguments are also accessible as $1 ... $n
in the procedure body.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<para>
The return value from a trigger procedure is one of the strings OK or SKIP,
or a list as returned by the 'array get' Tcl command. If the return value
is OK, the normal operation (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) that fired this trigger
will take place. Obviously, SKIP tells the trigger manager to silently
suppress the operation. The list from 'array get' tells PL/Tcl
to return a modified row to the trigger manager that will be inserted instead
of the one given in $NEW (INSERT/UPDATE only). Needless to say that all
this is only meaningful when the trigger is BEFORE and FOR EACH ROW.
</para>
<para>
Here's a little example trigger procedure that forces an integer value
in a table to keep track of the # of updates that are performed on the
row. For new row's inserted, the value is initialized to 0 and then
incremented on every update operation:
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION trigfunc_modcount() RETURNS OPAQUE AS '
switch $TG_op {
INSERT {
set NEW($1) 0
}
UPDATE {
set NEW($1) $OLD($1)
incr NEW($1)
}
default {
return OK
}
}
return [array get NEW]
' LANGUAGE 'pltcl';
CREATE TABLE mytab (num int4, modcnt int4, desc text);
CREATE TRIGGER trig_mytab_modcount BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON mytab
FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE trigfunc_modcount('modcnt');
</programlisting>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Database Access from PL/Tcl</title>
<para>
The following commands are available to access the database from
the body of a PL/Tcl procedure:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>elog <replaceable>level</replaceable> <replaceable>msg</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Fire a log message. Possible levels are NOTICE, WARN, ERROR,
FATAL, DEBUG and NOIND
like for the <function>elog</function> C function.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>quote <replaceable>string</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Duplicates all occurences of single quote and backslash characters.
It should be used when variables are used in the query string given
to <function>spi_exec</function> or
<function>spi_prepare</function> (not for the value list on
<function>spi_execp</function>).
Think about a query string like
<programlisting>
"SELECT '$val' AS ret"
</programlisting>
where the Tcl variable val actually contains "doesn't". This would result
in the final query string
<programlisting>
"SELECT 'doesn't' AS ret"
</programlisting>
what would cause a parse error during
<function>spi_exec</function> or
<function>spi_prepare</function>.
It should contain
<programlisting>
"SELECT 'doesn''t' AS ret"
</programlisting>
and has to be written as
<programlisting>
"SELECT '[ quote $val ]' AS ret"
</programlisting>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>spi_exec ?-count <replaceable>n</replaceable>? ?-array <replaceable>name</replaceable>? <replaceable>query</replaceable> ?<replaceable>loop-body</replaceable>?</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Call parser/planner/optimizer/executor for query.
The optional -count value tells <function>spi_exec</function>
the maximum number of rows
to be processed by the query.
</para>
<para>
If the query is
a SELECT statement and the optional loop-body (a body of Tcl commands
like in a foreach statement) is given, it is evaluated for each
row selected and behaves like expected on continue/break. The values
of selected fields are put into variables named as the column names. So a
<programlisting>
spi_exec "SELECT count(*) AS cnt FROM pg_proc"
</programlisting>
will set the variable $cnt to the number of rows in the pg_proc system
catalog. If the option -array is given, the column values are stored
in the associative array named 'name' indexed by the column name
instead of individual variables.
<programlisting>
spi_exec -array C "SELECT * FROM pg_class" {
elog DEBUG "have table $C(relname)"
}
</programlisting>
will print a DEBUG log message for every row of pg_class. The return value
of <function>spi_exec</function> is the number of rows
affected by query as found in
the global variable SPI_processed.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>spi_prepare <replaceable>query</replaceable> <replaceable>typelist</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Prepares AND SAVES a query plan for later execution. It is a bit different
from the C level SPI_prepare in that the plan is automatically copied to the
toplevel memory context. Thus, there is currently no way of preparing a
plan without saving it.
</para>
<para>
If the query references arguments, the type names must be given as a Tcl
list. The return value from spi_prepare is a query ID to be used in
subsequent calls to spi_execp. See spi_execp for a sample.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>spi_exec ?-count <replaceable>n</replaceable>? ?-array<replaceable>name</replaceable>? ?-nulls<replaceable>string</replaceable>? <replaceable>query</replaceable> ?<replaceable>value-list</replaceable>? ?<replaceable>loop-body</replaceable>?</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Execute a prepared plan from spi_prepare with variable substitution.
The optional -count value tells spi_execp the maximum number of rows
to be processed by the query.
</para>
<para>
The optional value for -nulls is a string of spaces and 'n' characters
telling spi_execp which of the values are NULL's. If given, it must
have exactly the length of the number of values.
</para>
<para>
The queryid is the ID returned by the spi_prepare call.
</para>
<para>
If there was a typelist given to spi_prepare, a Tcl list of values of
exactly the same length must be given to spi_execp after the query. If
the type list on spi_prepare was empty, this argument must be omitted.
</para>
<para>
If the query is a SELECT statement, the same as described for spi_exec
happens for the loop-body and the variables for the fields selected.
</para>
<para>
Here's an example for a PL/Tcl function using a prepared plan:
<programlisting>
CREATE FUNCTION t1_count(int4, int4) RETURNS int4 AS '
if {![ info exists GD(plan) ]} {
# prepare the saved plan on the first call
set GD(plan) [ spi_prepare \\
"SELECT count(*) AS cnt FROM t1 WHERE num &gt;= \\$1 AND num &lt;= \\$2" \\
int4 ]
}
spi_execp -count 1 $GD(plan) [ list $1 $2 ]
return $cnt
' LANGUAGE 'pltcl';
</programlisting>
Note that each backslash that Tcl should see must be doubled in
the query creating the function, since the main parser processes
backslashes too on CREATE FUNCTION.
Inside the query string given to spi_prepare should
really be dollar signs to mark the parameter positions and to not let
$1 be substituted by the value given in the first function call.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
Modules and the unknown command
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
PL/Tcl has a special support for things often used. It recognizes two
magic tables, pltcl_modules and pltcl_modfuncs.
If these exist, the module 'unknown' is loaded into the interpreter
right after creation. Whenever an unknown Tcl procedure is called,
the unknown proc is asked to check if the procedure is defined in one
of the modules. If this is true, the module is loaded on demand.
To enable this behavior, the PL/Tcl call handler must be compiled
with -DPLTCL_UNKNOWN_SUPPORT set.
</para>
<para>
There are support scripts to maintain these tables in the modules
subdirectory of the PL/Tcl source including the source for the
unknown module that must get installed initially.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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